Senbon Zakura
by thousandyearflower
Summary: A mysterious girl with mismatched eyes appeared, bloody and injured, at the gates of Konoha. It's evident that Konoha doesn't know the girl, but why does Kakashi think he's seen her somewhere before? And why does her smile seem so fake? What is she hiding? Time: after Naruto left, about a month before he returns. Rated T for violence, mild gore and sufficient swearing. No fillers.
1. Prologue

_The red-haired patient opened her eyes. Blinked. The medic near her head gasped, the soft green light from his hands faltering, and a fresh cut broke open on the patient's cheek. Muttering a curse, he refocused on his work. Soon, as one, the medics cut off their flow of chakra and took two steps back._

_"Send word to the Sandaime and Hatake that the patient had awoken." "Hai."_

_The patient was a young girl of no more than 10. Hatake Kakashi had carried her, bloodied and injured, into the village when returning from __his solo ANBU mission a few days ago. Wh__ile Kotetsu went to alert the hospital and fetch medics, Izumo and Kakashi tried to give her some first aid. Her hair, which was a shade of red nearer to burgundy, made it rather hard to differentiate between the wounds and the bloody kunoichi gear. "She's still a child! How cruel!" Izumo exclaimed upon finding her tool pouch and the wickedly sharp blade strapped to the small of her back. Then, they had thought her pale skin was because of her blood loss._

_However, after the medic-nins arrived and took her away and put her in the emergency ward, they told Kotetsu and Izumo and Kakashi that the girl had no hitai-ate but she had a tattoo above her ankle. One of a snake coiled around a cherry blossom petal. The Sandaime was alerted to the arrival already, and will soon make a personal appearence. Then after expressing their concern for the unknown kunoichi's wellbeing, Kotetsu and Izumo had to go back to guard duty. Kakashi, after demanding that he be alerted should anything happen to the girl, left to file his report._

_A rustle made the medics turn. The girl was in an upright position, her mismatched eyes blank and puzzled as she looked at her heavily bandaged hands. Glancing up, those eyes drank in the spartan hospital room. Then she turned her creepy eyes, the left the red of rusty iron, the right the blue of a midnight sky, onto the medics. Her eyes seemed to dilate and refocus._

_The sound of something breaking came from behind the medics. Swirling around, the medics saw the concrete wall of the ward cracking, webs of tension spreading from all over the place. Then—a root, a tree root, forced its way into the room, through the crack in the wall. Soon, plaster was falling from the ceiling and the facilities were creaking as they sputtered and died, wooden branches taking over and sprouting all over. They dipped and dived among the walls, and from one of them, a branch grew and at the tip of that branch, a single, red, cherry blossom. The flower, the same shade as the girl's hair, withered._

_The patient screamed then, an ear-splitting, drawn out scream of fear and hysteria like a cornered cat. Her entire frame tightened, and as a medic moved in to try to calm her down, a sakura branch burst from the floor under him and speared him right through. Then using him as the medium, the sakura branch grew from his mouth, ears, noseand even sprouted flowers. It was a gruesome sight, but there was no blood. The patient however, paid him no heed, and continued to freak out. With the scream, the branches in the room burst into growth, the branches becoming thicker, longer, stronger. Sakura, pink this time, blossomed everywhere with crazy daring. The branches creaked and groaned as they sought new space, going out the door and breaking the glass windows. But after the initialcausality, no one in the room was hurt, though they were rendered unable to move._

_As the branches broke the door and traveled down the corridor, there were shouts and cries of alarm. Under 5 minutes, the hospital was in an uproar and there was chaos everywhere. Branches curled and bloomed flowers, then stopped growing. Soon nearly every room looked like an orchard._

_Out in one of the corridors, Sandaime Sarutobi Hiruzen had heard the scream and quickened his pace, preparing for the worst._ It wasn't a scream any sane person was capable of_, he thought. What he was wholly unprepared for was the lone branch that peeked around the corner at him. Jumping into defence, his brain whirled. _Why is there someone capable of mokuton? I thought Tenzou was the last. Is it that mystery patient?_ But at that point, the branch hurled itself at him. To his surprise however, the branch whizzed past him, and split into three. Wrapping themselves around him a few times, rendering him immobile, they disappeared into another corridor. _Where are the ANBU?_He thought, _though these branches don't seem very threatening.

_Kakashi rushed to the hospital, after the messenger told him the patient he brought was awake. After losing Rin, he wanted to save those whom he can. The sight that greeted him at the hospital however, was not one he fancied. In fact, the building looked like a big tree had swallowed it with its roots. Indeed, at that point, the branches had broken any window it could find, and was now congealing like a big blob of wood at the top of the building. Woven together like a gigantic braid into a trunk, it spiraled out at the tip like a three-dimensional web. Then—_

_It was a spectacular sight, and Kakashi watched with horrified fascination._

_At one go, the all the branches that made up the webbing shot out, casting sticks of shade over the roof, then they sprouted flower buds. In a heartbeat, the buds threw open their petals. It was a magnificent, gigantic cherry tree._

_Then, a gust of wind blew, and the cherry blossoms shed their pink petals to the wind. Swirling round and round like pink bubbles they disappeared into the sky. A faint fragrance hit Kakashi. Suddenly, the blossoms withered, all of them. Like pouring paint, brown seeped from right to left, the sakuras wilting and drying up. The entire tree seemed to shrivel and shrink._

_Breaking out of his trance, Kakashi rushed into the building. Bodies were strewn on the floor, and he hurried to one of them, felt his pulse. _Still alive._ He breathed a sigh of relief. Giving a quick check to all the people, he headed straight to room 303, afraid for the girl. On the way up, he had to use Raikiri more than once to clear the way. Imagine his surprise when he saw the Sandaime wrapped up in flowering branches. Cutting the Hokage free, they went together up to the room. As Kakashi brought down the cherry branches (these had red blossoms) blocking the entrance, they saw the medics all ghostly white and pressed into corners._

_The bed was empty, bandages a heap._

_"S…she just…just…disappeared! Like a…a…teleportation!" a medic sputtered, raising to point a shaking finger at the empty bed._

_"She did?" Sandaime mused. _I was really looking forward to speaking with her; it's rare to see someone with Flower Release.

_"What happened?" Kakashi demanded._

_Stuttering and shaking, with some help from his friends, the medic explained the process, and pointed to the dead medic beside the bed, and voiced his suggestion that the patient with the mismatched eyes was the caster. "And she disappeared in a swirl of petals." One of the medics supplied, "and left all the bandages behind."_

_Then a laundry maid bustled into the room behind them and said, "Her gear and clothes are gone!"_

_Kakashi didn't want to believe it. An injured redhead girl, no more than 10, with a red left eye and a blue right eye, who had a kekkei gekai that was obviously linked to sakuras, whose name they didn't know, freaked out, attacked the hospital building, leaving a dead tree behind, and disappeared along with her gear in a swirl of petals? He looked towards the Sandaime._

_"Oh well. But we did heal her, and her red hair and eyes sound like some very distinctive features. If she didn't harm anyone and left then I guess we don't have to care very much. Kakashi, don't feel too bad. Well then, if there's not much to do here, organize a funeral for the medic, and I'll get someone to clean up the tree. It looks like we could actually use the wood! Kakashi, help the people to get out, then you are dismissed." The Sandaime turned around, took a puff of his smoke, and left._

_…._

_For a long time, no one said anything._

_~  
Back in his office, Sarutobi Hiruzen was in deep thought. When the sakura blossoms bloomed around him, he was sure he knew what kekkei genkai it was and which clan it belonged to. _But they don't belong in Konoha, and was rumored to have been shunned by every village they moved to, and they all have a streak of mental instability. Also, didn't the Tsuchigumo clan all die of some disease? I thought they didn't have the red hair gene as well. Wasn't it brown? Or is the girl another one of Orochimaru's experiments?_ Just a moment ago, a hospital staff had given him a thin folder on the girl. In it included a detailed analysis of her health. _The tattoo sure seems suspicious. Doesn't seem like something a girl would get by herself. Then again, the Tsuchigumos was rumored to be eccentric. I think they settled on the borders of the Hi no Kuni before they got wiped out. But, kami, that was, what, 20 years ago?

_But then one of the ANBU reported in, and the thought of the mysterious girl with the long lost kekkei genkai and the mismatched eyes was pushed out of his mind._


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: I've noticed there are some people reading my fics! *happiness* The previous chapter isn't a chapter, not really. It's more like the prologue of this story. I'll change the chapter name, don't worry. Also, your subscription probably said something about the previous chapter being re-uploaded. You guys don't need to go and re-read anything; I merely changed the clan name 'Kazekami' to 'Tsuchigumo'. Side note, the OC is named Kazekami fill-in-the-blank , so I'll explain the Tsuchigumo name on coming chapters. If you read my other fics (which I don't think you do) you would know I write as I go, so updates will be infrequent and slow. Sorry. Really. From the bottom of my bottomless heart. Also, I'm at the stage where I'm constantly re-writing a lot of my previous stories, so if one day you can't find this story, just go to my profile. I'll probably have an explanation there.**

**AU caution: the Sandaime is alive, but Tsunade is Godaime. I just have to let the Sandaime be alive, or no one will make the connection. I'll probably never get the chance to include how he's alive, so my theory is Orochimaru got away, Sandaime sealed his hands away (as weird as it sounds) and he collapsed, but is still alive. Just so you know.**

**Bashing caution: Note to readers, I'm not a Sasuke-lover. So there'll be a lot of Sasuke bashing in this story, Sasuke-lovers beware. Don't flame me.**

**Just to those who wonder, the kekkei genkai thing is not going to be too important in the story, and I'll explain on it into the story, so don't worry if you don't get what I'm saying. But because the explaining part will still take some time to surface, I'll answer people's questions (if they have) via either PM or reply comment.**

**Thx.**

**~... = timeskip or location skip**

_Italics_ = **thoughts**

**~...~**

Wandering around Orochimaru's current hideout, an underground facility somewhere in Kusugakure, the red-haired girl had nothing on mind.

"Oi, Zakura! Come over here!" the last Uchiha called upon his senior.

The redhead tilted her head left and back and threw a rusty red glance over her shoulder. She didn't like him very much. "And why should I?"

"Because Orochimaru (she noted the lack of a suffix) told me to look for you if I want to train today, and now I do."

Heaving a sigh, Zakura turned around to face Sasuke. "Well, if Orochimaru-_sensei_ (she emphasized _her_ suffix) said so, then meet me above in 5 minutes."

Uchiha Sasuke didn't answer, just turned around and walked away.

"Pesky, arrogant brat," she muttered under her breath.

About two years ago, the raven-haired boy had been brought in by Orochimaru, and had quickly taken Zakura's place as his favored student.

She can see why she really can. The boy lived up to his name, a certified genius with the perfect elemental combination of fire and lighting. He soaked up jutsus like a sponge, learning kuchiyose faster than she did and had perfect mastery over chakra shape manipulation. He had the makings of a ruthless and powerful shinobi. His attitude however, was worse than shit. That stupid, ungrateful Uchiha brat never once called Orochimaru-sensei _sensei_. On a good day calling Kabuto and her without any suffixes. On a bad day, her name was shortened into just: "bitch".

_Someday I'm gonna beat him to pulp_, she thought viciously, single blue eye flashing dangerously, _after all, my elemental nature is water and wind. And I'm still stronger than him. For now, anyway._

What was the most infuriating, though, was the fact that even before Sasuke came, Orochimaru-sensei had expressed his desire to make Sasuke his next vessel, dismissing Guren-san. And when Zakura suggested to her sensei to 'just take his eyes, and then you get the Sharingan _and_ the Crystal Release', her sensei slapped her. A good, clean backhand right across her cheek so hard it split her lip.

"Respect your fellow student," Orochimaru's raspy voice was, for the very first time, cold and hard. Zakura shivered and replied softly, "Hai."

Once she returned to her room that day, she punched a hole in the wall (and broke her hand in the process) and hissed, "You bastard Uchiha."

_It's all that bastard's fault, _14-year-old Zakura hated him, there and then.

So when Kabuto introduced them the next day, she had to use every ounce of her self-control to not spit at him. She nearly did though, throwing her name (Kazekami Zakura) like a stone into his face. It was also then that she got her first taste of the Sharingan.

The genjutsu warped her senses, twisted her vision and made her stomach churn. When it ended, she was on all fours, heaving and dry retching. She wanted to swing a fist at his face but didn't want to puke her intestines out so she kept her hands to herself.

Then Kabuto-san chided (_chided!_) Sasuke, "She's your senior, Sasuke-kun."

Said person just huffed and walked away. After giving Zakura a slightly worried look Kabuto followed Sasuke.

_If there's any more Uchihas out there,_ Zakura Kazekami thought then,_ I'll freaking kill them all, gouge out their eyes and start a Sharingan collection._

_Too bad Itachi's got to them before I did,_ tilting her head up to look at the ceiling, a now 15-year-old Zakura thought absently to herself while opening the door to her room.

Shutting the door behind her, she changed into her kunoichi gear then shunshined to where Sasuke's inevitably waiting.

_**~...**  
_

_Orochimaru's having a coughing fit today. I know I shouldn't be hasty, but if I could get Zakura to help me, maybe I'll be able to kill Orochimaru sooner than I expected._ Sitting on the grass and looking at the clouds, Sasuke calculatedly wondered. _Sheesh. She's always late, though thankfully not hours at a time like Kakashi. If she is I'll really kill her._

Then he sighed. _Of course she wouldn't help. Give her an altar and she'll go worship that big snake. I'll have to use genjutsu then, though the chances of me slipping away without her landing a hit on me are close to zero._

**~...**

A swirl of cherry blossom petals later (_much like Kakashi's leaves_, Sasuke mused) Zakura appeared. "Ja, what do you want to train? Speed? Reaction? Accuracy? Dueling?"

"My Sharingan." Sasuke activated his kekkei genkai.

"All three then," with another sigh, Zakura did a few hand seals and a sakura tree fully flowered burst from under her feet. Sitting cross-legged on a particularly wide branch, she did another set of hand seals. "Sakuraton: Senbonzakura."

The air around her shivered as sakura petals fell from their flowers, hovering in mid-air folding themselves into thin sticks. Wrapping all the needles in a thin sheet of wind chakra so that she could control their trajectory, she glanced down at the Uchiha. She formed the ram seal and ordered firmly, "Ike!"

Flashes of silvery pink whizzed through the air, speeding towards the stationary Uchiha. Sasuke of course, didn't disappoint. The senbons were thinner than ordinary needles, but his Sharingan saw them. He dodged and flipped and jumped and cartwheeled and somersaulted and…"Oi! This isn't a freak show! Are you a ninja or a circus monkey?!" Zakura's screech came above the zips of the needles barely missing his face.

A blur of one-handed seals later, "Chidori Senbon!" Thin, bright needles pinged off hers.

Zakura frowned. _Another change? That's a new one._ Pouring more wind chakra into the sheet surrounding her senbons, she started spinning them. A second later, the needles were spinning with such velocity that they could drill through rock. With a smirk, Zakura threw them at Sasuke, who automatically brought up his jutsu to shield himself.

Bzzzzz….. The brights streaks of light splintered and died.

_Yes! _Zakura cheered silently. Out loud she said, "You should work on the sturdiness. Right now I dispelled them because I'm using wind techniques, but I suspect if someone used an Earth element hardening technique, they would win as well. Want to try again?"

To her surprise, Sasuke shook his head and drew out his sword. "I'd like kenjutsu now."

Starting on warm-up katas, the brilliant blue-white tendrils of electricity arched up and down the blade.

Raising an eyebrow at the sudden change, she jumped off the branch when the tree retreated into the ground.

Reaching behind her, she grasped the handles of her daisho and slid them out. She used a single katana up till she was 10, then through intensive training by none other than Hoshikagi Kisame of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of the Mist and a reluctant Itachi Uchiha, she progressed to dual-wielding, a daisho set. The wakizahi, when held backwards, reached her elbows and could become as long as her arm when she runs wind chakra through it. The width of the blades was about her arm (she's a sinewy person), and increases to a butcher knife's width when enhanced with wind chakra.

Forged form an unknown alloy by one of Orochimaru's subordinates, the blades were two bands of poisonous black, twin slashes of midnight that absorbed light in the midday sun. Wrapped in cloth, the blood red handles contrasted with her pale skin.

Twirling them around with practiced moves, Zakura moved into her first kata stance.

_Wonder what's up with him today,_ she thought as her red and blue eyes twinkled with curiosity, peering through her thick fringe at the raven-haired teen. _ Normally he would demand I do that again till he managed to land a hit on my tree._

But she kept silent. Partly because she preferred sparring to stagnantly throwing her petals around, partly because she knew asking would not get her answers.

**~...**

"Ready?"

Zakura snapped out of her katas, straightened up then slid into the starting stance of a fight and scraped her katanas together. "Ready when you are." She flicked her tongue out to lick her lips, a trademark move of Orochimaru.

Spreading his legs wide for balance, Sasuke gave a brief nod.

Zakura was the passive-aggressive type of fighter. Meaning she tends to stand opposite her enemy and wait and wait and wait till the enemy goes nuts and attacks her first. Then she'll give a brief exchange of blows ('to hone my skills' according to her) then finish off the enemy with a quick, fatal slash.

Sasuke, however, was the frontal-assault type of fighter. He would stare for a few moments at his enemy, finding the weak spots in his defense, then with fast, accurate movements aimed to kill, eliminate the enemy.

Both were fast and efficient.

So, when Sasuke launched his attack, it wasn't surprising.

They clashed in a flurry of metallic sparks. He jabbed and she deflected. He slashed, missed, and she countered with a quick slash of her own. He feigned to the right but she didn't fall for it, lunging to his right a second after he attacked to hack at his exposed side, as his brilliant white streak dived to scar her on _her_ right was parried with her own strip of blackness. He leapt aside just in time for the sword to nick his clothing. The fibers of his white top frayed and sizzled at the shallow cut and he thought, _corrosive poison?_

Landing, he cracked a grin. _All the better_, he thought and charged towards her, his katana frizzling with electricity, intending to get into a deadlock so he could execute his genjutsu.

Turns out his succeeded, as she, a tad bit too slow to turn, only had time to bring up both her blades to intercept his.

They were in a standstill for a few seconds. However, a few seconds was all Sasuke needed. His Sharingan whirled and a simple controlling jutsu was placed on her. Her red-and-blue eyes shimmered and the Sharingan was reflected in them. Her blades dropped and she stood slack until she suddenly straightened up and begin walking towards the hideout entrance, looking for all the world like a reanimated corpse.

**~...**

For Zakura, it was as though she blacked out and was only allowed fleeting sensations from time to time. She knew, with a part at the back of her brain, that she was being manipulated, that her body was moving without her consent, and that part cursed the only possible person, Sasuke.

Her mind was sluggish and slow and wouldn't process things with adequate clarity, like it had shut down. She lost all sense of time in that void that wasn't consciousness nor unconsciousness. A few times she heard people screaming, and it was distant; some time else she felt pain as though something banged on her, and that was distant was well. Then, sharp and clear, her mind springing into motion, suddenly she could hear, could see, could _feel_, could make sense of her surroundings.

Shinobi instincts kicking in, she drew a quick glance around her and at herself. Nope, she definitely was not in the clearing with Sasuke anymore, nor was that brat anywhere near her. She's pretty sure she's deep in the hideout, somewhere Kabuto might take her to teach her advanced anatomy; somewhere Sasuke might drag her to just to gross her out with Orochimaru's extensive collection of slimy-things-floating-in-jars.

The corridor she was in was long with a sole wooden door at the far end.

Her body, after giving herself a quick but thorough once-over, yielded cuts of various degrees, some still bleeding steadily. Her pretty black blades were coated with a dark red sheen that was absolutely not the poison she had applied in the morning. Who would smear their weapon with blood that thick?

The stench of blood corroded the air.

_What the fucking hell just happened? _Zakura looked behind her, at the pile of rubble that blocked the proper entrance to the corridor. A peculiar scene presented itself to her. A few branches, evidently leftovers from her Sakura Release, were poking out of the pieces of rubble. Those branches had thinned out to mere sticks that had followed her, in a jerky, plant-y way, as the woody fingertips of those branches were connected to her ankles.

A drop of blood leaked into her vision. _HUH?!_

Bringing a hand up to her head, she felt something sticky and thick on her hair. Bringing the hand down, she stared at the maroon substance in her hands, as though it was the first time she had seen it.

It was true to a certain extent, as she always made sure to keep herself, especially her hair, clean even when fighting. By clean, she meant as less blood as possible. She didn't, and still doesn't, like the way blood dries up and sticks her hair together.

The blood on her hand glistened in the candlelight.

A loud bang followed the scream of disbelief.

"Zakura!" The door at the end of the corridor slammed open and Orochimaru stood silhouetted in the doorway.

Candles on either side of the corridor flickered; shadows cast by the light shivered on the walls and made the blood pitch black.

Scrambling to face her teacher, Zakura let loose a torrent of questions.

"Orochimaru-sensei, what's going on? What happened? What am I–" her urgent questioning was cut off by an icy stare from Orochimaru.

Eyes wide, she stared at her teacher.

Orochimaru frowned. The question and desperation in his student's eyes were genuine, while a glimpse of her rarely seen left eye through her fringe showed the honest glint in the rust-red iris. That in itself was saying a lot. She was his student after all, and his students got into all sorts of trouble. If they couldn't fake their emotions, namely their 'sincere' apology, they'd have been slaughtered by Kabuto long ago. All his students seemed to have a knack of pulling untraceable pranks on his white-haired servant.

If she, one of his best, was like this after wrecking apparent vast devastation (which includes greatly reducing the number of experimentees) to his best hideout yet and barging through the wall trying to get to his private chamber, was absolutely clueless to what happened, something really suspicious was going on.

"What's the last thing you remember? Calm down and talk to me, watashi no hana." He squatted before her, gazing straight into her dilated pupils.

At the moment she opened her mouth, what sounded like a thunderbolt striking a boulder stole Orochimaru's attention. His head snapped to the right, in the direction of the rumble. "Follow me," he swept away, Zakura scrambling to follow.

**~...**

Orochimaru strode out into the open and surveyed his surroundings.

"Is this your doing?" he asked Zakura with accusing eyes.

Zakura looked around, taking in the details. Half of the underground cavern was destroyed and there were sundry experimentees who were crushed under the rubble. A selected few lay slashed to bits, limbs askew and flesh torn. The metal bars of the prison cells were crooked and some broken, others hang on their hinges, slabs of stone half in half out of the cell. The whole place looked as though a hurricane had torn through. _That _was supposed to be her doing? Just what the hell happened during the training?

And then she remembered. She saw Sasuke's Sharingan a split second before she blacked out, and Sharingan was the perfect tool to cast a genjutsu. Though his level was nowhere near Itachi's, a simple controlling genjutsu was something any genjutsu user should know. Zakura's eyes hardened and she turned to Orochimaru. As she opened her mouth to voice her opinion, she was cut off for a second time in 5 minutes. Said boy had just ran into the space.

She averted her eyes to glare at him, then realized her mistake a second too late. A flash of black on red and she was back to that damned void where she wasn't in control of her own movements. She had a vague idea of what Sasuke was trying to achieve through her, and wanted to warn her sensei about it.

A second later, however, she could see again, and she saw sakura wood poking through the floor and wrapping themselves around a stunned Orochiamru. Already she had her wakizashis out and slashing a downwards arc towards her teacher.

Time seemed to slow down for her. She knew Orochimaru probably didn't know she was being controlled, but she was already in motion, so she couldn't stop. As her blade descended on his shoulder, she saw his serpentine eyes widen and harden and knew she'd never explain herself out of this one. The spurt of blood landed on her face and the branches retracted into the ground.

Wrenching her blade out of his shoulder (sending more blood flying), she skidded back a few steps, putting considerable distance between her and her teacher. He might be her teacher, the person she owe al her skills to, but that didn't mean he wouldn't and an angry Orochimaru was a dangerous one.

At this point Sasuke hurried up to Orochimaru.

"Oi you, daijoubu?" he asked, faking concern.

"Such a small wound isn't even be a hindrance," he hissed to Sasuke, then turning to Zakura, he spoke in a louder voice, "You seriously can't have thought you'd be able to defeat me with those childish tactics, you of all people."

_I didn't plan to! _Zakura wanted to shout, but her tongue didn't work.

As Orochimaru regarded her with incredulous, yellow eyes, her attention became fixed on Sasuke's crouching form behind Orochimaru. The raven-haired boy was staring at the holes in the ground where her branches had disappeared into and frowning. One would think he'd smirk at her, or at least glare at her.

Trying to figure out that mystery, Zakura almost heard the 'ding' as a lightbulb went off in her brain.

Twice he controlled her, yet twice the spell broke after she used a Sakuraton technique.

_Does that mean that technique actually disrupts my chakra flow?_ she thought. _Sweet! Another_ _trick__ up my sleeve!_

Then, with a little more awe, _doesn't that mean I caused all those destruction without having the branches destroy the foundation like I always do? Wow, I'm stronger than I thought!_

Caught up in her rather egoistic revelations, she didn't see the troubled look flash across Orochimaru's face.

**~...**

"Zakura!" Orochiamru barked.

The red-haired girl jumped and swiveled her head to focus on her teacher.

He had a pale hand on his shoulder, his bony fingers touching the shallow wound she had not meant to make. Removing his hand he brought his fingers up to his nose and sniffed.

"Is this a new poison?" he asked accusingly, "Just my luck it seems, that my body is more than immune to any poison one could brew here. Even though..." he flicked out his tongue to taste the poison. The black liquid stained the tip of the red appendage. "I don't remember having sakura syrup as an ingredient. What did I say about concocting new poisons and making new ingredients without telling Kabuto?"

Zakura gulped, wanting to explain but having no explanation. How do one explain a blatant display of disobedience? All she wanted was to make a new, possibly lethal poison and impress Orochimaru when the time comes, so how was she to know it would turn against her like that?

"Am I therefore correct to assume you really wanted to kill me?" Orochimaru wiped his fingers on his shirt, leaving three strips of liquid black against a dull beige. "Is that why after all these years you still refuse to wear the Sound-nin clothes? Is that why all these years you refuse to learn sound based ninjutsu? Is that why, when I offered you the Sound hitai-ate, you refused in favor of your black, anonymous one?" As he linked more and more together, a horrible thought occurred to him.

_What if the reason she's acting this way is because she somehow knew? About her family, about their history? About the massacre? About her and_ _Karin? _He did not let his inner turmoil show, though.

"Because you didn't want to be tied down by loyalty, to be restricted by duty? Because you didn't want to be labelled traitor when you finally make a move?" By now his eyes were narrowed and his face was set. _No matter the truth, this girl's a liability. I need to get rid of her. She's not stupid. She'll find out the truth sooner or later. Better safe than sorry._ Then his face softened a little. _How to break it to her I'm chasing her away? I might have killed, but I _am_ still a human with feelings. I was the one who raised her after all, and my hideouts were all she had to call home. _

He gave himself a mental shake. _What am I being melancholic for? I'm getting soft._

"Zakura, you are well aware yourself that you have broken many rules in the long time you've been under me. Today was the last straw. I frankly don't care about the circumstances surrounding this incident, but the fact is: you destroyed half the hideout and tried to break into my room. You even tried to kill me. I can't let you stay."

Zakura stared. She didn't comprehend the direction the situation was going. What did he mean, "you can't stay"? She...have to leave? Where...where can she go? Another hideout? No...probably not...

"But, but sensei! It wasn't me! It was, it was..." she trailed off, realizing that while she sounded like a whining three-year-old, her cause was completely un-arguable. Who would believe her? Sasuke was Orochimaru's prize student! A member of the famed Uchiha clan! Her? A small, nameless child probably picked from the dump. Her shoulders drooped, the fight gone. She sank to her knees.

Orochimaru looked down at the girl he had raised and taught. Closing his eyes, he severed all emotional ties with the girl and motioned for Sasuke to leave. As he and Sasuke walked towards the other side of the room, he suddenly stopped and turned his head slightly.

"Why are you still here? Leave."

Needless to say, Zakura didn't answer, nor did she react. As her inner turmoil spun out of control she crumpled into herself, clutching her head between her hands, though still not making a sound.

Orochimaru watched mutely for a few seconds, then waved a hand at Sasuke. "Take her to her room. She has 5 minutes to clear out."

Raising an internal eyebrow at the mercy of his current host, Sasuke walked over to Zakura and snapped his fingers in front of her face. As expected she snapped (literally, her body shot up straight and her eyes refocused) back to life and threw a hateful glare at him. All he did was smirk. "Follow me. Hurry up now if you want to leave this place in one piece."

**~...**

Orochimaru watched her go. _Forming bonds really isn't a good habit after all. And Sarutobi was going on and on about the importance of bonds. I'll never listen to him again._

**_~..._**

Sasuke stopped outside her room. Looking back at her, he couldn't resist one last jab. "Turns out your precious teacher believed in me more than you. Oh and by the way, you have 5 minutes to clear out, to quote him."

The red-haired girl, flipping her fringe away, gave him a rare red-blue glare. He suppressed a shudder. Having those cat-like eyes glare at you was worse than being caught in Orochimaru's snake-like stare. But now that _that _part of his plan had been fulfilled, he didn't really care about her anymore. After all, Orochimaru never picks up anything he's discarded.

**~...~**

**Kusugakure: Village Hidden in the Grass**

**Wakizashi: a short katana**

**Senbonzakura: literally means 'thousand cherry blossoms', also Zakura's signature move. Senbon means 'thousand' but it also means needles with two pointed ends in the anime. I'm using it with a double meaning so the phrase means something like 'a thousand cherry blossom needles' or something like that.**

**I'll only be explaining the jutsu that I make up, so I trust dear readers to know their jutsus~****J**

**I'm having trouble finding romaji translations on online, english to romaji, so if anybody have anything to offer, maybe a site or to help translate, leave a review or PM me, thanks!**

**Fun fact: I only just realized: Tsuchi – stone. Gumo – spider. Tsuchigumo – a big, evil spider in some legend that lived in the mountain. So how does wood and flowers connect to evil mountain spider?!**

**Fun fact 2: Kaze – wind. Kami – god. Wind god and stone spider. Mean anything to you? … the picture I get in my head nowadays when I'm thinking of what to write next for this story is damn comical. I visualize a spider clinging to stone with its legs while the wind, personified as a puffy-cheeked person, puffed at it.**

**Also, I'm not sure if red hair _does_ mean one is connected to the Uzumakis, because Gaara's definitely not. But Zakura will be, even though she doesn't know it for sure, she suspects it. And she will know Karin, though I'll only introduce that fact in flashbacks and when the story finally gets to the Five Kage Summit Arc.**


	3. Beta help

**Hello, dear readers. I'm sorry to say this isn't a chapter, but they are there, just waiting for me to finish writing. I promise they'll be long, and not disappointing. Even though, I would wish for someone to be my beta, hopefully permanently for this story. My friend who usually betas for me is sick and busy, you see…so if anyone is interested or wishes for a peek read, do PM me, 'kay? Heads up, I'll accept anybody!**

***Hugs and gives out free cookies***


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